Hidden Seasons: How God Quietly Forms Prophetic Leaders

Blog by the Unhurried Living Team

Hidden seasons are not wasted time. They are often the exact place where God forms the character, calling, and dependence that visible ministry later depends on. Alan Fadling, co-founder of Unhurried Living, unpacks this idea by returning to the long, unseen years in the life of the prophet Elijah.

For years, people told Alan that the ministry of Unhurried Living felt prophetic, and for a long time he was not sure what to make of that description. Reading Eugene Peterson's reflections on Elijah helped him notice something he had missed: the prophets were shaped less by their public moments and more by the hidden seasons that came before them. This post walks through what those hidden seasons can teach any tired leader about solitude, weakness, and the unhurried life spiritual formation that Jesus himself modeled.

If you've ever wondered why your most faithful years felt invisible, this episode speaks directly to that ache. What follows unpacks the real, practical shape of an unhurried, hidden-seasons life of faith.

What Does Unhurried Life Spiritual Formation Look Like in Hidden Seasons?

Alan Fadling first encountered this pattern of unhurried life spiritual formation in Eugene Peterson's book The Jesus Way, in a passage about the prophet Elijah. Peterson noticed that Elijah's years in the wilderness and in the home of a poor widow were not interruptions to his calling; they were where his calling was actually formed. That single observation reframes what unhurried life spiritual formation really looks like: quiet work God does in the parts of a story nobody applauds.

Of the nine locations tied to Elijah's story, only Mount Carmel offered a public stage in front of a crowd. The rest, places like Cherith and Zarephath, were small, hidden seasons that most biographies would skip past entirely. Alan Fadling points out that we remember Mount Carmel, but God remembered the hidden seasons at Cherith too, and that quiet attentiveness is itself a picture of unhurried life spiritual formation.

For anyone whose current season feels small, unremarkable, or hard to explain to other people, this is worth sitting with slowly. Unhurried life spiritual formation rarely photographs well, yet it is often the very thing preparing a leader for whatever comes next.

A simple, honest step today might be naming one hidden season you are in right now and asking God, in a single unhurried sentence of prayer, what he might be forming in you there.

If you want to sit with more stories of leaders shaped in hidden seasons, you can look through Unhurried Living's collection of books and resources and explore it here.

How Do Solitude and Prophetic Calling Work Together?

Alan Fadling names a real tension in this part of the episode: prophetic ministry tends to be lonelier than other forms of ministry, and solitude and prophetic calling seem to travel together throughout Scripture. He points to Abraham Heschel's question about Elijah's hilltop retreat, essentially asking whether anything of real spiritual significance has ever been achieved without the protection of solitude. It is a question worth sitting with rather than answering too quickly.

Alan shares that he and his wife and co-founder, Gem Fadling, spent many years with declining visibility and little apparent growth in their work, even after sensing a call toward wider influence decades earlier. Looking back, he now sees those quiet years as part of the hidden work God was doing before anything was ready to be revealed. This is where solitude and prophetic calling become more than a phrase; they become the actual shape of a life spent close to God rather than close to a spotlight.

Kings, Alan explains, want a fixed and manageable set of values, while prophets stay open to a word from God that often surprises everyone, including the prophet. Solitude and prophetic calling protect a leader from shaping God into something more convenient, and instead invite a leader to be shaped by who God actually is.

A small, honest step today might be trading fifteen unscheduled minutes of noise for fifteen minutes of real quiet, just to see what surfaces.

When you are ready to learn how solitude becomes part of a leader's training rather than an escape from responsibility, you can look into the PACE leadership training and find it here.

Why Is Weakness as a Spiritual Foundation Good News?

The episode's clearest turn comes through an unexpected source: the recovery movement. Alan cites author Ernest Kurtz, who observed that recovering alcoholics are united not by what they can do but by what they cannot do, since shared weakness, rather than shared strength, is what actually binds one person's recovery to another's. That insight becomes the heart of weakness as spiritual foundation throughout the rest of the message.

Alan connects this directly to Jesus' teaching about the poor in spirit and to the apostle Paul's willingness to boast in his own weakness rather than his accomplishments. Elijah, too, was formed in hidden places precisely because he had nothing left to prove there. Weakness as spiritual foundation is not a strategy for looking humble; it is simply where grace has room to do its actual work.

Most cultures, including religious ones, reward strength, certainty, and visible results, so weakness as spiritual foundation will not feel natural at first. Alan's honest observation is that the older he gets, the more he needs this reminder rather than less.

A concrete step today could be naming one place of weakness out loud to God, without editing it into something more impressive first.

What Do Hidden Seasons and Prophetic Solitude Look Like in an Unhurried Life?

Put simply, this episode challenges a handful of assumptions many leaders carry without ever examining them. The contrast is worth naming directly, because most of us have absorbed the left column more than we realize.

None of this makes hidden seasons and prophetic solitude comfortable, but it does make them make sense. An unhurried life is not a slower version of the same ambitions; it is a genuinely different way of measuring a life.

Who Is This For, Wherever You're Serving From?

This message is for pastors, nonprofit directors, church staff, and ministry coaches who feel the ache of an unseen season and wonder if their effort even counts. Unhurried Living's podcast reaches listeners across 145 nations, and this particular episode speaks to that quiet exhaustion in whatever country, time zone, or ministry context you happen to be serving from. Wherever you're reading this, you're welcome here.

What Is God Forming in You Right Now?

Hidden seasons are not evidence that God has forgotten you; they are often exactly where he is doing his deepest, least visible work. Solitude and weakness are not obstacles to a prophetic, unhurried life, but the very places where that life gets formed. Alan Fadling's closing question lingers well past the episode itself: are we willing to be formed in the same hidden places where the prophets were made?

Take one step toward a slower, steadier rhythm and sign up here for the Weekly Email. Start with the Unhurried Daily Email, a 40-day devotional built for exactly this kind of unhurried life spiritual formation, and get started here. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How does solitude form us spiritually like the prophets? A: Alan Fadling explains that solitude protects prophets from copying the easy assumptions of the crowd around them. Scripture consistently pairs prophetic ministry with real, sometimes lonely solitude, from Elijah's wilderness years to Jesus' own withdrawals to pray. That protected space is often where clarity and calling actually take shape.

Q: Why does God work in hidden and marginal places? A: Alan points to Eugene Peterson's observation that Elijah's most formative years happened away from any public stage, in ordinary places like Cherith and Zarephath. Hidden seasons let God do deep work without an audience shaping the outcome. It is often only in hindsight that these hidden seasons reveal their real purpose.

Q: What does it mean to live an unhurried life? A: An unhurried life is not about doing less or moving slower for its own sake. It means living from a settled trust in God as the true center, rather than rushing to prove worth through visible results. Alan Fadling describes it as leading from fullness instead of running on empty.

Q: Was Elijah's story really shaped by hidden seasons rather than his public miracles? A: Yes. Alan Fadling notes that of the nine locations connected to Elijah's story, only Mount Carmel provided a public stage before a crowd. The other eight took place in quiet, easily overlooked places, which is where Peterson argues Elijah's actual formation happened.

Q: How does weakness relate to spiritual growth in this episode? A: Alan draws on Ernest Kurtz's insight that recovering alcoholics are united by shared weakness rather than shared strength. He applies that same principle to spiritual life, arguing that weakness as spiritual foundation is where grace actually finds room to work. This mirrors Paul's own willingness to boast in weakness rather than achievement.